


Haunted

by wildcranberry



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Puzzleshipping, Tendershipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-07
Packaged: 2019-06-06 18:54:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15201233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildcranberry/pseuds/wildcranberry
Summary: A thought had been making its way to the front of Ryou’s mind. It wasn’t exactly a good one, but now that the subject had been brought up he didn’t know that he could stop himself. It had been eating at him, too absurd to voice aloud even to himself until now. There was no use in containing it. “Do you really think they’re gone?” Ryou asked a little too forcibly to sound at all casual.There it was. Out of his subconscious and into the frying pan.“Huh?” Yugi asked as he tore his distracted gaze away from the window over the sink. “What do you mean?”Ryou pondered abandoning the subject for a moment. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to take it back. He probably should but it was just… the nervous change in Yugi’s expression did not escape his notice. “Do you ever think,” Ryou began slowly... “that sometimes strange things still happen?”





	Haunted

**Author's Note:**

> A short little series based on my desire to write a post-canon fix it. Enjoy!

Ryou rapped his knuckles on the heavy door, stepping back ever-so-slightly while he waited for a response. He had checked the apartment number against the address he had scribbled down twice. Still, he shifted on the doorstep in his sneakers. It had been almost two years since he had last seen Yugi, though his fame certainly kept the general public up to date with the young celebrity’s latest accomplishments. _King of Games_ —and all.

The white-haired Englishman tugged at his shirt when he heard the sound of footsteps within. _Had graduation really only been two years ago?_ Yugi was already a newly crowned world champion. Ryou was well… _not that._ Not that it mattered, since Yugi truly deserved everything that he had accomplished on his own. His new home in one of Domino’s most exclusive neighborhoods certainly was impressive, even if it served as an unfortunate reminder that the boy’s grandfather had passed the year before and the Game Shop sold.

After a few more muffled footsteps the door swung open to reveal the petite form of Yugi Mutou. Ryou relaxed, his nerves evaporating at the sight of his old friend. They embraced on the narrow steps, Yugi just barely coming up to Ryou’s shoulder. He looked bigger on television these days. He certainly wasn’t any taller but his face was different. Leaner, most of the baby fat stripped away from his features. _Like the Spirit_ , Ryou thought before he could stop himself.

“Ryou! It’s so good to see you!” Yugi grinned as he stood up on his tip toes. Ryou leaned back with a slight blush as they separated. The feeling was mutual.

“Sorry I’m late,” Ryou apologized when he stepped into the foyer and shed his coat. He never came around this side of town. “Took a wrong stop.”

“Don’t worry,” Yugi smiled as he gestured for Ryou to dump his coat on a cluttered rack near the door. “I was so wrapped up in this new Vegas project I hardly noticed,” he admitted a little sheepishly.

“The new Kaiba Corp tournament?” Ryou asked while they wandered into the deluxe kitchen off the main hall. “The kids in my building were talking about it last week. Sounds like it’s going to be big.”

Yugi nodded while he filled a kettle from the sink and set it on the stove. “No pressure,” he chuckled.

“How is Kaiba?” Ryou asked curiously as he accepted an empty mug from Yugi and settled down at the small kitchen table. Once the kettle was on, Yugi joined him.

Yugi snorted at the question before he responded. “He’s mellowed out a little bit, but not much.”

“Still though,” Ryou replied. “He seems to be doing well for himself.”

Yugi nodded. “Record sales,” he smiled even if the expression didn’t reflect genuinely. He looked tired, Ryou noticed. It was only mid-morning but dark circles were clearly visible under his bloodshot eyes. Hadn’t he just been in America? Ryou didn’t envy the hectic schedule that came with Yugi’s fame.

Ryou was saved from producing a response by the whistle of the kettle. Yugi hopped up from his seat to retrieve it, pushing a small box of teas in Ryou’s direction. Ryou selected his favorite while Yugi returned with the water. They seeped their brews in an easy silence, listening to the faint sounds that echoed from the streets outside. With most of his friends now residing in other cities or countries for college, Ryou briefly wondered if Yugi even spent much time with anyone in his fancy house.

They talked their way through the morning, catching up on old stories and new tales. Ryou had missed this—the easy conversation between friends. For the briefest of moments he could pretend like no time had passed at all. Like Anzu wasn’t off in France or Kaiba wasn’t becoming a respected business professional. Even Jou was apparently receiving acceptable marks at some institution Ryou had never heard of. _Happy endings for all._ Eventually they lulled into an easy silence while Ryou worked on his second mug and half a scone.

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Yugi asked, derailing Ryou’s train of thought. Ryou set his mug down with a slight frown. He didn’t follow. What had they been talking about? Yugi bit his lip and it suddenly dawned on Ryou. The thing they hadn’t discussed in much more than two years. _Ever,_ really.

He supposed he should have known for Yugi to call him out of the blue like he had. There was only one other person on the planet who could sympathize and no one really knew where Malik was. Yugi stared down into his drink while Ryou blinked at him. “ _It is_ ,” Ryou finally responded quietly.

Yugi nodded, still watching the contents of his mug. “There isn’t a day that I don’t miss him.”

Ryou smiled as he picked up his tea again. “Would you believe me if I said the same?” He asked. “Not Atem obviously but—” Yugi flinched visibly at the use of the name.

“Yeah,” Yugi murmured as he glanced up. _I know you don’t believe a person could miss Bakura_ , Ryou thought. He could hardly justify it to himself.

“It’s lonely sometimes,” Ryou admitted. After so many years? Anyone would feel a void.

Yugi looked back down again. “I guess I just thought it would get better.”  

“Grief is complicated,” Ryou replied as pity swelled within him. He was something of an expert in that kind of thing now. “You’re not weak for feeling it.”

“I know,” Yugi said as he nursed his mug. “I’m sorry—” he said quickly. “I don’t mean to be a downer it’s just—”

Ryou smiled again, placing his hand on top of his friend’s and giving it a squeeze. “Believe me Yugi, I get it.” Yugi still looked rather upset with himself before Ryou continued. “Look at you now! We both know how proud he would be.” A pink flush bloomed on Yugi’s cheeks. It was good. Even after all they had been through, everything had turned out alright. _Everything was fine._

A thought had been making its way to the front of Ryou’s mind. It wasn’t exactly a good one, but now that the subject had been brought up he didn’t know that he could stop himself. It had been eating at him, too absurd to voice aloud even to himself until now. There was no use in containing it. “Do you really think they’re gone?” Ryou asked a little too forcibly to sound at all casual.

_There it was. Out of his subconscious and into the frying pan._

“Huh?” Yugi asked as he tore his distracted gaze away from the window over the sink. “What do you mean?”

Ryou pondered abandoning the subject for a moment. Perhaps it wasn’t too late to take it back. He probably should but it was just… the nervous change in Yugi’s expression did not escape his notice. “Do you ever think,” Ryou began slowly... “that sometimes strange things still happen?”

“I don’t follow…” Yugi said, but his demeanor betrayed him. _Not a good subject then._ It was fair, considering the concept sounded even more unstable outside of Ryou’s head than it had in his private thoughts.

“I can’t explain it,” Ryou shrugged as he pushed the spoon around his mug. “Sometimes I wonder if we’ve truly been left alone.” So there it was, the reason he wasn’t as grief riddled as his friend. A pleasant combination of delusion and denial.

“Ryou,” Yugi said with a frown, “we saw them move on, they’re gone.” There was a sense of finality in the young man’s tone.

_You didn’t know Bakura like I do_... Ryou thought to himself as he smiled politely and returned to his drink. But he wouldn’t push the subject. “You’re right, ignore me—” he conceded while he stood and offered to collect Yugi’s plate.

 

* * *

 

Atem glared daggers at Bakura where he floated near the white marble countertop. Atem couldn’t actually lean against the surface without a body but the habit was hard to kick. “ _We agreed not to interfere,_ ” he ground out in the direction of the other spirit he had been determinedly ignoring for the past few hours.

Bakura rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “It’s not like I can talk to him.”

Atem turned away and narrowed his eyes. It was true, since they had become trapped in some kind of limbo between time and death he could no longer lay so much as a finger on the present. They were struck, but now without the Millenium Items left even further from the modern souls they had once embraced. Atem seemed to have been doomed to spend eternity with Bakura as the only other entity he could seem to encounter. Hell was real. Who would have thought?

“It’s dangerous to impact on their lives!” Atem snapped. He hated the sight of the ancient thief and had put no small effort into avoiding his presence entirely over the last few years.

Bakura was inspecting his own transparent fingers when he snorted. “Like your midget is doing so well—kid looks like he’s going to throw himself off a bridge.”

Atem clenched his jaw and glanced back at the table. It didn’t matter how loudly the two of them argued in the kitchen, since neither Yugi or Ryou could hear them anymore. Bakura wasn’t wrong, Yugi didn’t look well. He was pushing himself too hard for Kaiba’s new program. He needed to take some time off even though Atem knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t. His spirit no longer contained within the Puzzle and set free to wander the living realm, Atem had found it impossible to stay away. Though he could no longer offer any protection he watched over Yugi. Through exams, graduation, and all of the ups and downs of his rising career.

Denied any real ability to wreak havoc or mayhem, Atem had his suspicion confirmed that Bakura had adopted a similar routine when the spirit had slunk in that morning after the white-haired boy. _But how had Ryou known?_ It was either an eerie coincidence and an unlucky guess or Bakura was up to something nefarious. Not that Atem believed anything could be a coincidence when it came to the Spirit of the Ring.

“What’s your goal here?” Atem asked while he moved away from the counter. Yugi and Ryou were sitting blissfully ignorant of their exchange only a few feet away discussing the new tier structures for some regional tournament. “It would be wrong to pull them back in.” Though Atem didn’t doubt that Bakura would be open to inflicting such cruelty for his own benefit.

“What’s yours, _Pharaoh?_ ” Bakura shot back. “Clearly we’re not moving on. I’ll be damned if I have to spend another millenia trapped.”

Atem sighed. “ _We are damned,_ ” he muttered. That was it then. Bakura had deluded himself into thinking there was another chance or a way out. Atem could hardly blame him, since he knew how much the solitude could eat at the mind. “Listen to me Bakura, there is no way out of this. We missed our time.”

Bakura stared him down from the other side of the narrow room. “I didn’t think you’d be the first one to give up. What is this, _heartbreak?_ ” He sneered. Atem looked away. He wasn’t in the mood to be lectured by a psychopath. “Just going to wait around and watch him die?” Bakura continued, his voice rising. “I bet you’ll get a kick out of watching him fuck other—”

" _Enough!_ ” Atem barked, his temper flaring. “Yugi deserves to do what makes him happy.” The almost amused look on the other spirit’s face gave Atem the sinking feeling that he had played right into some kind of trap.

“Whatever,” Bakura said, “I’m getting out of here.” Without warning his figure dissolved into thin air, leaving Atem alone with the two mortals and his sinking mood.

_You just can’t Bakura—believe me I’ve tried…_

 

* * *

 

Yugi set his wet toothbrush down on the rim of the sink while he surveyed his weary face in the mirror. He really needed to get more sleep. Yugi turned the bathroom faucet back on and reached for the soap and a washcloth. He was at least still managing to hold his nightly routine together. He scrubbed at his skin, closing his eyes as he enjoyed the warmth of the water.

It was stupid to think too much about the past, that much Yugi knew. But still, the earlier conversation with Ryou continued to haunt his thoughts. If he allowed himself to dwell too much on the memories it would surely ruin him. People weren’t meant to live in the past, it wasn’t where they belonged. Yugi would always miss Atem but he was _gone_. He had left. Yugi had watched him go.

Yugi’s life wasn’t perfect, but it was so much more than he had dared to hope for the first time he wished upon the Puzzle. He had the best of friends, he had seen the world, and he had grown up. Yugi dried his face with a towel before lowering it slowly to meet his own reflection again. Ryou hadn’t said it, but Yugi was sure he had noticed.

He looked more like Atem. Not in any way that mattered, Atem would always be the one with the hooded eyes and easy looks that Yugi had admired so much. But Yugi had grown into his own features as the puffy cheeks of his youth had finally melted away. He would have been even more grateful for it if he had even considered dating in the last few years. Did people still do that? Who had the time?

Yugi glanced back at his reflection one more time while he allowed himself a rare moment. “ _God I miss you,_ ” he whispered to the empty room.

 

* * *

 

Ryou grimaced while he flipped through the growing stack of bills splayed out on his rickety coffee table. The small television buzzed in the background, listing off the results of title matches in various tournaments. Ryou didn’t have to listen to know that Yugi’s name would pop up a time or two. It had only been a month since Ryou had visited his friend, even though Yugi had picked up several more top contests. He was going to be an international household name soon if he wasn’t careful.

Suddenly a tinny screeching sounded from the television—causing Ryou to jump. He blinked in surprise, watching the cheap horror flick that was now broadcasting on the dated screen. Ryou narrowed his eyes. He turned to catch a glimpse of the remote that was still sitting untouched on the back of the couch. It wasn't the first time his system had seemingly decided it preferred something a little more macabre, but it certainly was the most brazen.

Ryou dropped the ‘ _FINAL NOTICE_ ’ back onto the tabletop before he stood up. He hurried into the attached bedroom and wrenched open the drawer of his antique nightstand. Ryou pushed a few keepsakes aside until his fingers found the bit of folded paper he was looking for. It had been a chemistry assignment at one point, probably one of the many that had never been turned in during the weeks and months of time Ryou had no recollection of. He ignored the printed text, flipping the paper over to read the two words scrawled across the back in red pen.

**_I’m sorry._ **

Ryou crumpled the note in one hand. There was only one being who would bother to fuck with him from beyond the grave…

He grabbed his coat off the top of his dresser and hurried back down the hall. The front door of his apartment slammed behind him while he took the stairs two at a time. He still only had half of an idea of what he was doing by the time he reached the dark street. But it wouldn’t be hard, considering the neighborhood he lived in.

Ryou crossed the street, barely glancing back over his shoulder to check for traffic. No one else was out. It would be foolish for them to be since muggings were up and the younger gangs were constantly about in a display of force. Ryou rounded the corner of the first familiar alley he reached. It really didn’t matter which one. He jogged up the lane, passing various bins and other clutter that had been abandoned around the stash houses. A few faces peered at Ryou through the slats in the shuttered windows.

He was halfway up the block when a loud cracking sound echoed and the whole place was plunged into sudden darkness. Ryou turned on his heel, blinking while his eyes struggled to adjust and his heart began to pound in earnest. The sound seemed to have been shut off too, replaced by an unnatural stillness that hung heavy in the air. Every lamp and window had been extinguished as Ryou glanced around. _You’re going to have to do better than that,_ he thought.

Ryou stepped up onto the curb. He walked right up to a large metal door under an inscrutable sigh. He had just seen someone pass by the previously lit window not a second before. Ryou grabbed at the door handle but the object remained firm in place under his hand. He narrowed his eyes and tried it again. The damn thing wouldn't so much as budge in either direction. Ryou threw caution to the wind, banging loudly on the metal surface as he shouted. No response.

After a moment of contemplation, Ryou kicked the door. His eyes widened at the briefest flash of color before his brain caught up with the new pain in his foot and he swore. But it had been there. For a moment—the tell-tale purple traces of a very particular presence. Still doubled over momentarily in agony, Ryou grinned. Someone had locked him out.

“ _I fucking knew it,_ ” he whispered as he stumbled back into the dark and still deserted street. “Where are you?” He asked louder while he glanced into the various corners. He had to suppress the urge to laugh.

No one responded to him but it didn’t matter. Bakura was there somewhere, he knew that much. “What do you want?” He asked the street again now almost shouting. “Why can’t you talk to me?” Ryou shook his head at the answering silence. “Bakura you useless bastard—what am I supposed to do?”

 

* * *

 

Yugi shuffled his deck absentmindedly while he watched the quarterfinal match carrying on below from his position in the Kaiba Corp skybox. The crowd let out a tremendous roar of noise when a surprise trap was revealed on the field. The spectacle of the game had grown immensely since the first few tournaments Yugi and his friends has participated him. He had been watching the two younger duelists go at each other with a fair interest, since it would be his turn soon.

He was still the undisputed King of Games. No one had yet managed to come close to Atem’s challenge. Yugi was more confident now than he had been in those days, finally proud of titles that were all his own. No one even really knew that Atem had existed. Gone and forgotten. Just like that—no one knew how much Yugi owed the ancient spirit… for everything.

The tournament’s standout young woman was still wiping the floor with her opponent below while she executed devastating back-to-back plays. She was good, but relied far too heavily on the same traps. She would be a tough challenge but Yugi’s deck was far more balanced and better suited for her level of play than the duelists she was used to. Yugi doubted their own match would last more than a dozen turns.

He was pulled out of his revere by a buzz in his pocket. He pulled out his phone and glanced at the text he had just received from Jou. He laughed aloud at the message, shaking his head in a hopeless attempt to rise above the crude comments before quickly tapping out a response.

 

* * *

 

Ryou frowned at the tepid water dripping steadily through a small crack in his ceiling. At least the leak probably wasn’t a sign… _right?_ He could feel his increasingly questionable grip on reality struggling to demand logic and reason the longer he stared at it.

It would be ridiculous for Bakura to send him a sign through some dirty rainwater slowly soaking the well-worn carpet of his apartment. Not that much of anything would surprise Ryou now. He’d been plagued with an endless search for possible signs since his brush with old memories in the alley. It was as exciting as it was terrifying. Ryou had all but abandoned his previously defined line between imagination and reality as a result. Although—they had never been particularly well managed concepts for him anyway.

He turned back to the slightly rumpled flyer still clutched in his hand. Ryou figured if he had finally cracked, he might as well lean into it all the way. The offending bit of advertising had been tucked into his apartment door when he arrived home. The top part had been torn off, which wasn’t as much of a sign in his neighborhood as the fact that it didn’t appear to have been delivered to any of the nearby units. Really, it was the logo at the bottom that gave the whole thing away.

**_The Domino Museum invites you to experience new artifacts & exhibits! _ **

The museum. That seemed about right. _Nothing ever went horribly wrong for them in that place._ It certainly wouldn’t be unwise to go investigating whatever updates they had made to the now-permanent Ancient Egyptian wing. Totally safe and rational. Ryou fetched his largest pot from under the kitchen sink and set it under the leak. That would buy him a few hours. He figured when he was finally committed to a mental institution one of these days it couldn’t be much worse than his apartment at least.

Ryou hurried through the rain to the bus stop, poking his way around the various other commuters still struggling to make it here and there in the evening traffic. People doing _normal_ things. He finally caught a seat on the west-bound line, settling down for the hour-long trip with the flyer still folded up in his pocket. He had to resist the urge to glance around nervously every few seconds as if someone were watching him. Which was ridiculous, since he was only visiting a public museum.

When he did glance up he spotted a familiar face staring at him from one of the ads mounted between the dingy windows. _Yugi Mutou headlines in Korea_ , Ryou mused as he took in the brightly colored poster advertising the event. At least he was keeping busy then. Briefly, Ryou had wondered if the presence of one of the spirits could mean the presence of all of them. Surely given an option to return to the present Bakura would not be the only one? Yugi and Atem had been so close…

The museum steps were fairly deserted by the time he arrived, most of the guests having long departed that close to closing on a Friday night. The elderly woman at the door waved Ryou in without so much as second glance. He supposed it wasn’t odd for ordinary people to visit an ordinary museum. Totally normal. Nothing to nefarious afoot. _Nothing at all._

The place was empty as Ryou moved through the familiar hallways towards the only exhibit he was interested in. The florescent lights illuminated countless display cases crammed with all kinds of dusty fragments. He wandered through the rows, glancing over all of the things he had seen before. After a few minutes he began to wonder if it had truly just been a normal flyer after all... What had he expected really? To find the spirit who had possessed him for years milling somewhere here between the ancient scarab jewelry and pottery shards? He went through everything twice anyway.

He stopped near the back of the room, hands now crammed into his pockets as a sad weight hung in his chest. Maybe it was nothing at all. Just a fool chasing his grief. How stupid he must look standing here pursuing a dead man while everyone else was out living their lives. He had never been able to forgive Bakura for never saying goodbye. Maybe his refusal to forgive or forget had caused the whole invention in his head. Like a unpleasant dream that dragged on and on.

Ryou had decided to give up and head home when a flickering light caught the corner of his vision. The light within a door left ajar down a hall continued to sputter as Ryou stared. A large placard that read “ _Lost & Found_” was mounted next to the doorway. It was probably just a dying lightbulb. Still, he figured he had come this far already.

He pushed the door open, glancing around to make sure he was still alone while the hinges creaked under the movement. The closet-like room was crammed full of boxes containing forgotten junk like odd mittens and the occasional bag. Ryou glanced into them as he edged his way towards the stuffed racks in the back where children’s brightly colored coats hung on mismatched hangers. He was starting to feel incredibly stupid standing in the tiny room when his eyes fell on an object tucked into the very back of a rack.

He hurriedly shoved the other garments out of the way as he scrambled to pull the one article free. A dark colored trench coat trailed from the hanger Ryou seized, so familiar that Ryou had momentarily stopped breathing. _There was no way…_ How had it wound up—? Why? Ryou tossed the hanger onto the floor and shrugged into the thing. It was slightly too big for him but it didn’t matter. Bakura’s heavy jacket draped over his frame and hung down near his sneakers.

Ryou lifted the bulky sleeve as he wiped at his eye with the back of his hand. “ _I’m not crying,_ ” he whispered to the room as the lump in his throat swelled. It had been real. It _was_ real. He wasn’t alone. He climbed out of the cluttered room and back into the hall, stuffing his hands into pockets of the jacket as he sniffed away the remainder of his emotional moment. Ryou frowned when the fingers of one hand encountered a smooth object. He wrapped his fingers around the heavy sphere and pulled it free of the deep pocket, his eyes widening as he recognized the unmistakable glint of gold.

“No, no, _no, no, no—_ ” Ryou panicked as the Millenium Eye rolled in his palm. Hadn’t they all been destroyed? He almost dropped the thing in his haste to stuff it back into the offending pocket. “Dammit Bakura!” Ryou snapped as his heart pounded in his chest. “You know how much I hate this one.” He turned around in a circle as he glared at the still empty space.

“I’m not putting it in my face!” Ryou called out. He had some boundaries.

 

* * *

 

Atem watched while Yugi set his hefty new trophy down on the entranceway table and kicked his shoes off. He padded through the kitchen in his socks, not even bothering to turn on the lights as he went even though it was quite late. Yugi had skipped the victory celebrations, something Atem had noticed was happening more often. He knew that Yugi had never cared much about the fame, but it still worried him.

It had been a tough game, surprising Atem as much as it had sent Yugi on the defensive. The fiery young woman had stepped up the competition level for her duel with Yugi, delivering challenging blows to his strategies at every turn. Atem had never doubted that Yugi would prevail as the ultimate victor, but he knew how Yugi would beat himself up over his small stumbles. _You’re too hard on yourself_ , Atem thought silently. _You are more than enough as you are._

Yugi had changed into an oversized pair of sweats before curling up on the couch in the living room. He stared out into the dark space, his obvious frustration playing out across his handsome features. Atem ached with a desire to comfort him, to sit and talk with Yugi through countless nights as they had done before. Yugi had always been an open book—too courageous to ever take his own heart off his sleeve. It was one of the things Atem had grown to love so much about him.

“What am I doing?” Yugi sighed into the empty room as he untucked his feet from beneath him. Atem felt some small relief when Yugi stood up. He wasn’t the type to stay down for long. Yugi wandered away from him towards the bookshelves near the back of the room, his eyes roaming over the cluttering of volumes and keepsakes that lined the shelves. He paused at the end while Atem watched, reaching up to remove one of the photo albums stacked with extra care. Atem hadn’t seen that one in years.

Yugi settled back onto the couch, carefully folding back the leatherbound cover. The first few pages were mostly newspaper clippings, a few brief snapshots of the things that had once done together. Atem felt a twinge of guilt that so many of the triumphs recorded were represented with his own face. Yugi had been the critical force behind so many of those original victories. In a way Atem was grateful now that everyone could see it as much as he had. Yugi was the better duelist—always had been.

Atem’s heavy heart sunk in his chest when he heard a muffled sniff and watched a single tear glisten along Yugi’s cheek. He had long since given up his fear that Yugi and his friends would forget him. Now he spent more time wondering if he had done the right thing at all. Surely it was selfish of him to feel that way? No one had really known what would happen when his soul was separated from the Puzzle. As far as Yugi knew everything had gone well. Atem had decided long ago it was better that way.

 

* * *

 

Atem appeared out of the darkness only a short distance from Bakura in Ryou’s cramped bedroom. It was long past midnight now as most of the modern world slept around the two restless spirits. Ryou lay twisted in his own sheets, snoring slightly. If Bakura had been surprised by Atem’s sudden interruption he didn’t show it.

“Fine,” Atem announced. “I know you’re up to something and I’m in.”

Bakura blinked back at him from the other side of the room. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he drawled. He looked almost bored.

Atem narrowed his eyes and opened his mouth again before his gaze fell upon an extremely familiar object lying on the shabby nightstand next to the bed. He blinked in shock. “ _Bakura, I’m going to fucking kill you—_ ” Atem breathed while the Millenium Eye stared back at him.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Let me know if you'd like to see more! 
> 
> As always, you can find me here on Tumblr: https://wildcranberry.tumblr.com


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